In a grossly lopsided affair, Man City put nine goals past League One's Burton Albion in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final tie.

The FC crew agreed that Manchester City showed full respect to Carabao Cup opponents Burton Albion, while running up a 9-0 lead in the first leg.

MANCHESTER, England -- Pep Guardiola said Manchester City showed Burton Albion "respect" by continuing to attack on their way to a devastating 9-0 victory.

His side showed no mercy with a ruthless, relentless display in the Carabao Cup semifinal first leg as they secured a place at Wembley to face Tottenham or Chelsea in the final, barring an incredible turnaround.

"We spoke about that at half-time -- to play simple, let them run and try to score more goals," Guardiola told a news conference. "It's the best way to respect the competition and respect the opponents. If you are 4-0 up and forget to continue, you don't have respect for the competition or your opponent. The best way is do what we have to do.

"We spoke about travelling to Burton with as big an advantage as possible but we didn't expect this. It's good for us because we can play the second team and players who don't play regularly. In this incredible schedule, we have a little bit of a break in that week to prepare for the other competitions."

Guardiola spent time with the Burton players as they left the pitch, including goalkeeper Brad Collins, who could not be blamed for conceding any of the goals.

The City boss said the League One side deserved a lot of credit for reaching the last four after knocking out Championship clubs on their way.

"I wanted to congratulate them for an incredible tournament," he said. "When you get to the semifinals and you have beaten Premier League teams and mythic teams like Aston Villa or Middlesbrough, the reason why they are here they deserve incredible credit.

"We are not a team that have a lot of titles in our museum so every chance to make a final you have to take. It doesn't matter what happened last season, you have to take it. The only way is to take it seriously.

"I said to the players, respecting the opponent is to be who we are. That's what we have done and that's why we are pleased."

Gabriel Jesus put his recent problems behind by scoring four goals -- the first time he has managed that feat during his career.

"Strikers need to score goals, he has had chances in the last few games and today he has scored," Guardiola said. "He is so important. It's going to be good for him, for the team, for everybody."

Burton boss Nigel Clough had no complaints about the result and said his side could not have done more to stop the thoroughly ruthless Premier League champions.

"We didn't expect anything less with the gulf between the two teams, we thought it could have been more," he said. "We didn't do too much wrong, two or three of the goals we could have done more but we didn't too badly.

"Do I wish we hadn't played? Not at all, we have made history in getting this far. It wasn't about tonight it was about the achievement of getting here. We kept going right to the end, they were shouting 'we want 10' and we stopped them, that's a positive for us.

"Some of the youngsters have had an experience that you can't buy. It's not nice when the goals are going in and you can do nothing to stop it."